Guide
Vessels waiting at the Mombasa anchorage for a berth, and vessels passing the Kenyan coast on the Gulf, Cape and Far East routes, can take crew, spares, provisions, cash and medical attention by launch without entering the port. Maingate Shipping arranges these services at the anchorage and off port limits for owners, managers and charterers.
The service is simple when the launch, the port and the supplier are coordinated, and the desk has done it enough times to know where the friction lies.
Joining and leaving crew, spares landed by air at Mombasa and cleared through customs for delivery to a vessel in transit, fresh provisions and stores, cash to master, technicians and surveyors, medicines, and documents. Bunkers by ship-to-ship transfer are arranged at the anchorage with the port's permission.
The vessel advises her ETA off Mombasa. The desk files the port's notification for an off-port-limits service, books a licensed launch, clears the items and the people through customs and immigration, and meets the vessel at the agreed position outside the port limits. The vessel maintains steerage way, the transfer takes place, and the vessel resumes passage.
Launches work in daylight and in acceptable sea states; the desk advises the vessel when the swell makes a transfer unsafe and reschedules rather than risk it. Pilot ladder rigging and the vessel's own transfer arrangements are confirmed with the master beforehand.
This desk is part of Maingate Shipping Limited, the Mombasa ship agency, crewing and brokerage house that has attended vessels at Kenyan ports since 2020 from its office at Express Building, Moi Avenue. Port agency at Mombasa and Lamu is handled by the company's own boarding officers; calls elsewhere in Africa run through the Maingate agency line under one DA format and one reporting style; Kenyan seafarers are recruited and managed from the same office; and the chartering desk fixes the tonnage that brings East Africa its wheat, fertilizer, clinker and fuel.
Principals deal with one desk for the whole voyage, and every service is agreed in writing before it is performed.
No. Most OPL services are done with the vessel under way at slow speed at an agreed position outside the port limits.
A day or two for crew and provisions; longer where spares must arrive by air and clear customs first.
Yes. Bunkers at the anchorage and crew, spares and stores by launch are arranged together under one appointment.
Nominate Maingate Shipping and the answer comes from Mombasa with a proforma DA attached.
Related desks on the same instruction line.
Also on maingateshipping.com: Ship agency at Mombasa · Ship agency and charter brokers · Ship brokerage · About Maingate · Contact
Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091